Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist
A rare opportunity to view the work of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most adventurous and experimental modernist artists.
Made in the Pacific: A Collection of Tāoga
A selection of Pacific tāoga from the Canterbury Museum in conversation with contemporary artworks that highlight the continued strength in culture and traditional art forms.
Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua
A comprehensive survey spanning the artist's career.
E tuwhera ana te wharetoi i kā rā e 7 o te wiki, 10am - 5pm
Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Uruka utukore, ahokore utukore
Free entry, free wifi
Collection
Peter Madden Crouches with moths
A shroud of moths, their outlines cut from National Geographic magazines, rises up around this frail blackened skeleton. Gripped between its teeth is a golden coin, like those the ancient Greeks inserted into dead people’s mouths as ‘Charon’s obol’, a ritualistic payment for the ferry ride to the underworld. Peter Madden’s vision is deeply macabre, but not without humour or the hint of renewal. Springing from this decaying figure’s feet are werewere kōkako, the bright blue native mushroom named for the kōkako bird’s famous wattle – reminding us that death is part of a cycle that repeat endlessly over time.
(Dummies & Doppelgängers, 2 November 2024 – 23 March 2025)
Collection
Sarah Lucas NUD CYCLADIC 1
Bodies are custom-built containers, but the bits of us other people see don’t always reflect what’s going on inside. The pantyhose limbs Sarah Lucas has coiled into this strangely human form wriggle away from easy interpretation. Sexy and provocative, they’re also powerful, carrying more than a trace of the striking Early Bronze Age figurines that inspired them.
(Dummies & Doppelgängers, 2 November 2024 – 23 March 2025)
Collection
Rosemary Johnson Shadows 4
Despite the force, heat, pressure and noise implicit in the bronze melding process, Rosemary Johnson’s tectonic Shadows 4 is filled with an expansive, majestic fluidity, and holds together with an ordered sense of tension, strength and grace.Johnson became skilled in traditional metal casting processes at the Central School of Art and Design in London, after earlier studies at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Art. Returning to New Zealand in 1969, she became particularly well-known for her environmental art.
(As Time Unfolds, 5 December 2020 – 7 March 2021)
Collection
![On Southern Cross [Engine Room]](/media/cache/3f/2d/3f2d35846c1e9eb21305262e6b2b8296.jpg)
Louise Henderson On Southern Cross [Engine Room]
Having studied design in Paris during the 1920s, French artist Louise Henderson settled in Ōtautahi Christchurch with her husband, Hubert, in 1925, where she quickly became a significant figure in Aotearoa’s growing modernist art circles. In the 1950s she moved to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland before returning to Paris to study under the cubist painter Jean Metzinger, who fostered her interest in the movement. Like so many painters during this period, Louise developed an interest in lithography. She produced numerous lithographs during the mid 1950s and beyond, including On Southern Cross, a cubist study of the engine plant she had seen on the recently launched Southern Cross ship.
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Eileen Mayo Springing Fern
English-born Eileen Mayo had lived in Aotearoa New Zealand for twenty years when she made this screenprint of young fern fronds in the lush native undergrowth. One of her final prints, it combines her enduring appreciation of the natural world with an extraordinary technical ability, conveying not only the graceful beauty of the plants she depicts, but a strong sense of their place within a complex and interconnected ecosystem. The sight of fern fronds in the act of unfurling provided the inspiration for the Māori koru, a powerful symbol of perpetual creation, growth and return.
(He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil, 2025)
Collection
Glen Hayward Shrink wrap
Works of art aren’t as well behaved as they used to be. Once upon a time, they stayed where they were put, hanging obediently off picture rails or perching politely on pedestals. Since the arrival of the Duchampian readymade, however, many require a second glance to distinguish them from the world around them, as everyday objects are pressed into service in new, perspective-tilting contexts. There’s another kind of work too, the type Glen Hayward is known for: the readymade’s stealthier cousin. Meticulously, even obsessively, crafted to resemble objects you wouldn’t give another glance, these unobtrusive double agents aim to blend in, adding a subversive frisson to the gallery experience.
(Unseen: The Changing Collection, 18 December 2015 – 19 June 2016)
Collection
Philip Trusttum Depot
In 2009, renowned Christchurch painter Philip Trusttum surprised us with an exceptionally generous offer: a gift of twenty paintings, selected by the Gallery and with no limitation on scale or value. The first ten works entered the collection the following year, and rumbling in amongst them was Depot, this colossal gas-guzzler of a painting that hums with Trusttum’s trademark physical energy. The audacious scale belies the work’s diminutive origins; the artist found his inspiration in the toy trucks his young grandson William played with in his studio.
Collection
Evelyn Page Road through Arrowtown
Evelyn Page was part of the generation of painters that came through the Canterbury College School of Art in the 1920s and included Rita Angus, Olivia Spencer Bower, Rhona Haszard, and Ngaio Marsh. In 1927 Page was a founding member of the Group, located in Christchurch and one of New Zealand’s most progressive independent exhibiting bodies. By the 1940s Page had emerged as a leading New Zealand modernist painter, known for applying paint thickly with confidence and freedom. The Page family made regular holidays to central Otago, staying at Queenstown and exploring the surrounding region. Road Through Arrowtown was painted directly outdoors during one such holiday between December 1941 and January 1942. The tree lined streets of Arrowtown are one of the most photographed images of Central Otago, and little has changed since Page painted this streetscape – except perhaps the increased number of tourists and their mode of transportation.
(Turn, Turn, Turn: A Year in Art, 27 July 2019 – 8 March 2020)